


i don't wanna be friends (we should be lovers instead)

by callixto



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Drinking to Cope, F/F, Femslash February 2017, Getting Together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-19
Updated: 2017-03-19
Packaged: 2018-10-08 00:44:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10373970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callixto/pseuds/callixto
Summary: Who needs Chrom when you have alcohol and your 'best friend'? Half a character study.





	

**Author's Note:**

> warnings for past compulsory het and alcohol. crossposted a month late (oops).

“It’s a safety measure,” Sumia says, eyes hazed over from alcohol as she stumbles over her own feet one night. It’s late, and they’re all tired, and the poor girl’s always had a habit of turning to off-kilter solutions for her failures. There aren’t any flowers for Sumia to use to fortune-tell in these cold mountains, and if there were Chrom surely would have ripped them out at the roots to calm his tactician’s furor of anxiety after each battle.

Knowing that can’t be helping Sumia and her puppy-crush, and Cordelia’s conscious it should make her ache with love-sickness as well.

( – her feelings for Chrom have never been quite right, though. A ‘genius’ like her could only have been trying to catch his attention, one of her sisters had once said. “Aren’t you showing off too much? Who are you trying to impress, Princess?”

Cordelia doesn’t think she was trying to impress anyone but herself, but it was an easy pattern to fall into, and her dearest, oldest friend was a shining example of hero worship for their lord. She’s seen Sumia cry over him, over her falls, over embarrassment and anything that breaks past her sweet smile, quite enough, and when Sumia talks to her like this, breaks into her thoughts with a simple request – )

“I’m clumsy enough sober… I don’t want to hurt anyone or do anything stupid! Please?” She gives Cordelia those puppy dog eyes, huge and brown and melting Cordelia’s heart behind her armor, and Cordelia hides her suddenly red face behind a lock of equally red hair. 

“Only because I don’t want you – anyone – getting hurt. A proper knight never lets a lady drink alone.”

Sumia’s worked herself into a furor even by the time she asks for what little support Cordelia can give, heat-haze of scorned fury and the cheap alcohol that they all carry as rations and first aid supplies burning through her quick as water, and even so, she’s a sight. She doesn’t fear showing weakness like Cordelia does, but it still feels intimate to see her like this, all splotched cheeks and a voice free of stammers with the depth of her emotions.

"Y’know –” Sumia hiccups, “– I don’t think he likes us, like, at all! We’re not any good for anything except a fight, anyway!”

She’s always seen Cordelia’s ‘crush’ on their Lord Shepard as another thing bonding them together, another similarity to speak freely around her even though they’d cared for each other before his stuck-up, blue head ever appeared in either of their dreams, and Cordelia’s not seen fit to correct Sumia if it makes her happy.

She doesn’t think she wants to let it slide anymore, though; and if that rings selfish to Cordelia, when she hasn’t put herself first since her escape as a herald, comforting Sumia is an entirely different beast than claiming attention for herself. She leans into Sumia, thin nightclothes not enough to keep their warmth from mingling, and pats with little grace at Sumia’s head.

“I like you, though.”

Cordelia has to be perfect, she thinks. She was given her life, and she’ll do her best with it – what she wants for herself hardly matters, against what she can be. But… even so, she won’t run away anymore. She was never much good at that, anyway.

“I like you a lot, and you deserve better. Er, _we_ deserve better. So please, please don’t cry anymore, Sumia.”

From where Sumia’s slumped down onto her lap, hair strewn in a mess over Cordelia’s thighs and Sumia’s own tear-stricken face, she casts an almost surprised glance up at Cordelia, and Cordelia can feel her cheeks scorch red.

“We’re best friends, right? We don’t need him.” She sighs, almost on reflex, and lets the breath that feels caught in her throat go in relief at finally saying it. “I’ll be your prince, if you’ll let me.”

“I’ll take care of you, and let you be the damsel instead of the knight when you need to. You can protect me too, and I won’t look down on you, and we’ll never mock each other or have to run away.” It’s hard to stop, once she’s started, but Cordelia forces herself to a halt, holds her tongue and her bated breath, and Sumia smiles bright as the sun even through her renewed tears.

“You’re so dashing, Cordelia. I don’t deserve you.”

And Cordelia doesn’t agree, but they’ll have their whole lives ahead – til they die in battle or in the marriage bed, side by side either way – to argue who deserves whom and anything else they please.


End file.
